Topics

1

Suggestions and Requests / Request: Resizing swimlanes to move elements

« on: November 29, 2006, 11:48:00 am »

When you resize a swimlane - you then have to manually move the contained elements.

Can you please allow swimlanes to shift the contained elements (much the same as when you element A element B and you move element B - A also moves with it).

This would save a step repositioning elements on swimlane size changes.

Cheers,
DAvid.

2

Suggestions and Requests / Select multiple "things" on a diagram

« on: May 29, 2007, 05:48:32 pm »

EA supports selecting multiple elements, but what about connectors or other composite selections (ie. a boundary, connector and element?)

At the very least - select multiple connectors - so the colour, hide (or show) labels operation can be done in one hit rather than right clicking each and every connector....

Even better.... me being OO, generic and all that.

Extend the above, so EA could allow you to select a mish-mash of different classifiers on a diagram then based on UML classifier hierarchy, determine and show the common properties that can be edited on the right mouse click (ie. font in most cases, but many other things are classifier specific).

What do you think?  I've seen other tools do this (I think even Visio to an extent) but can't remember specifics.

David.

3

Suggestions and Requests / Shape script optionality

« on: December 22, 2008, 09:33:32 am »

We need a way to control whether the script applies to an element or not on a diagram.

On most diagrams, we want a standard rendering with shape script.  Problem is, we want to have one custom diagram type where user can render however they want.

Can Sparx please allow shape script execution to be conditional?

The best solution I can think of is permitting a return with a value within the shapescript itself that EA will check.  For example:
- return 0 - render using the statements executed thus far
- return 1 - draw the native shape and allow the user to do all normal overrides (such as choose alternate image, background colour / font etc....)

For backward compatibility, a return without value would default to return 0.

Thanks,
David.

4

Suggestions and Requests / Right click multiple elements - Z-order

« on: October 20, 2008, 06:07:24 am »

I should be able to select multiple elements then right click and either send them all to the back, bring them all forward, or move them back or forward relatively.

There are a lot more common operations between elements, that Sparx could implement on the righ click menu based on the UML classification hierarchy, plus building a hierarchy of inheritable GUI operations, compatible between like elements.  I know this has been requested before.

Thanks,
David.

5

Suggestions and Requests / XML Schema - schema import / include relationships

« on: October 17, 2008, 06:14:02 am »

When you impot 2 schemas, where schema A imports (or includes) schema B - no dependency relationship is created

Can EA XML import be extended to create some sort of relationship between included / imported schemas?

PS: I imported both A and B in the same operation

Thanks,
DAvid.

6

Suggestions and Requests / Statically named HTML pages

« on: October 14, 2008, 01:58:52 pm »

When generating the HTML for a model, I'd like to be able to get EA to consistently use the same URL for certain packages and diagrams.  The reason is I would like to be able to have a static URL is it allows a link from another website.

For example, our Helpdesk maintains their own list of applications.  It would be nice to place a link to an EA diagram of that application on the Helpdesk page.  Problem is, everytime I regenerate the HTML, the page name (ie. URL) could change, breaking the link.

What do you guys think?

A possible solution is just to generate folder/filenames to follow the project browser hierarchy.  Possibly using an 8.3 convention when File systems and tools that are Windows based have a hernia with long paths.

Thanks,
David.

7

Suggestions and Requests / RTF for <memo> type tagged value notes

« on: March 20, 2008, 08:17:11 am »

I have some <principle> requirements, where I have tagged values for implications and rationale for the principle.

The above tagged values have a bit of text and it would be useful to be able to use RTF.

Can Sparx please enable RTF on tagged values? - at least memo ones?

Thanks,
David.

8

Suggestions and Requests / Diagram - Show element list enhancements

« on: March 14, 2008, 09:18:59 am »

Show element list seems to exist to make reporting better only.  It could really make diagraming better if it did 3 things:

1. If you filter the show element list then show as diagram - actually only show on the diagram what is in the filtered list

2. Allow filtering on the element list on any property or tagged value rather than the crude filtering based only on element type.  Much more complex combinations of elements can then be selected.  ie. filter on status = approved and elements modified > dd/mm/yyyy, then right click and filter the diagram showing only those elements that meet that criteria (as per my 1. above).

3. Being able to create a new diagram either from the filtered elements in the list - or even better by the user selected elements.  You can right click and copy to keyboard but that only does the text representation of the elements.  Why not allow these objects to be pasted into a new diagram?

Plus one more new feature -

4.  What about "show connector list" to allow tabular editing of connector details.

David.

9

Suggestions and Requests / XML schema import - merge option

« on: October 24, 2006, 03:57:30 pm »

I would like EA to have an option to either "merge" or "import as new" when you do an XML schema import.

This would allow me to refresh schemas updated outside the EA model without breaking linkages I might have created within EA to other UML elements.

Currently I have to import the updated schema - and recreate linkages by hand (ie. WSDL dependencies, package diagrams showing overviews of complex types and schemas etc...)

A simple checkbox on the XML schema import window (if EA detects a the schema already exists within the package being imported into) would be great.  This would give the user the option of a fresh (and duplicated) schema (current functionality) or a merge.

The merge should make the EA modeled schema identical with the XSD from which it was imported.  In other words - new elements and complex types get added, removed elements and complex types get removed.

What do you think?

Thanks,
David.

10

Suggestions and Requests / Display tagged values on connectors and elements

« on: November 15, 2007, 05:23:42 pm »

I would like to be able to print / display a tagged value on a connector or element.

For example - I have a stereotyped dependency called <<interface>>.  I have added the tagged value "Transmission protocol".  I would like the value of this tagged value to appear on the connector (dependency) on the diagram.

Same should apply to elements.

I know you can do print() and println() in shapescript, but this is limited to pre-defined EA properties for elements and connectors.  I want to print tagged values of an element / connector on a diagram and also allow the user to reposition it like any other label.

Thanks,
David.

11

Suggestions and Requests / Custom Toolbox / profile for common used elements

« on: August 08, 2007, 02:10:49 pm »

How about being able to create a toolbox to contain key actors, components, nodes etc... often used on diagrams.

To be able to be configured per user.

This saves having to find in a large project hierarchy the right components.  Relocating frequently used elements to a "common" package wouldn't work since different project roles would have different elements (and some might be shared) and would also "break" the logical structure in the model moving things about.

What do you think guys?

Cheers,
David.

12

Suggestions and Requests / RTF generation - Connector source / target element

« on: July 29, 2007, 03:19:30 pm »

I need to be able to list all the connectors under my diagrams in my RTF documents and be able to include the source / target element names for each.

Currently - you can only include source / target element names for a connector, when you list the element at a package level (not within the diagram section)

Sparx - can you please extend the connector under the diagram section in the RTF generator to be able to include source / target element information (to be consistent with the connector setting already under the element section?).

Thanks,
David.

13

Suggestions and Requests / Sparx - how do you prioritise new features?

« on: May 31, 2007, 02:38:07 pm »

Dear Sparx,

Can you please tell me how you prioritise new features for major releases?

Do you solely go by formally logged requests?
Based on discussions with your largest customers?
Do you use much input from the eccentric (ie. me) on these forums?
Competitor features?

It would be good to know what use our posting does here to help Sparx decide on what features to introduce.

Would appreciate your response.  If there is a way we can better structure our suggestions to make it easier to filter / group, then please let us know.

I also suggest you run a poll on this site for features you wish to introduce for a new version (obviously prior to feature freeze) so that us, the users can help you prioritise.

Look forward to your response.

Cheers,
David.

14

Suggestions and Requests / Suggestion: Merge on XMI import

« on: November 13, 2006, 05:55:19 pm »

This would avoid duplicating elements already moved or relocated in the target (being imported into) model.

Suggest on the XMI import page, some options are added to allow merging by object type, stereotype and whether case in-sensitive merges are performed.

David.

15

Suggestions and Requests / Request: Quick link to support stereotypes

« on: November 28, 2006, 02:33:44 pm »

For example - when using quick link to create a dependency (or any other type of relationship for that matter), use a cascaded menu item to select the stereotype.

The user could still simply click on the dependency menu item as per now to create a simple dependency (without a stereotype), or display a sub-menu with the valid list of dependency stereotypes (and click on that).

Saves having to edit link properties after creating a relationship to set the stereotype.

Cheers,
David.